Does your restaurant take online orders—either from your own website or through a third party like DoorDash, Uber Eats, ezCater, etc.? Most quick-serve and fast-casual restaurants do. The on-demand segment of dining continues to grow every year with no signs of slowing down.
Optimizing those channels is worth the time—but it’s not always easy. Whether it's tech hurdles, changes in consumer behavior, or rising costs, digital ordering comes with its fair share of obstacles.
To help both restaurants and vendors make sense of it all, Nation’s Restaurant News just released the inaugural State of Digital Ordering report, supported by their sponsor PAR.
This report takes a look at the effect of digital commerce channels on restaurants of all shapes and sizes—and how operators feel about them. It covers what’s working, what could work better, what’s not working, and most importantly, what operators want more of from vendors.
From an operator’s perspective, this is a great read—it’ll show you where your thoughts and frustrations align with the broader marketplace. Knowing that can help you decide what to prioritize next.
From a vendor’s perspective—and this is big—this report will CONFIRM (yep, specific word choice!) what you should be focusing on. Spoiler alert: Nothing’s changed. Your support is still lacking. 😑
I suggest reading the report yourself, but here are some of my high-level takeaways:
2 BIGGEST HURDLES
The report goes in-depth on where we operators struggle with digital ordering, but two issues stand out:
- Integrations
- Lack of support
Across the board, the top issue reported—again and again, no matter how the question was framed—was this: Operators’ #1 frustration with vendors is a lack of support. And the one thing they want more than anything else? Insights. Look at my data and tell me what to do with it.
"More than one in five operators name inadequate support from technology partners as a major drawback to offering more digital-ordering channels. This cascades into other challenges like integration headaches and difficulty tracking orders from multiple platforms."
The days of “set it and forget it” software and hardware sales are over. If you aren’t in constant contact with your customers, you’re losing them.
And the second biggest issue? I can't believe we still need a report to say this—integrations. We've been shouting about this for years. Data between tech systems needs to flow smoothly and seamlessly. One of the biggest walls? POS systems. More and more, I see them acting like walled gardens. Why? How does that help you? All it does is frustrate operators.
I’ll put it out there—we use Toast at Handcraft Burgers & Brew, and I’ve seen firsthand how our POS provider puts up walls to other vendors. It’s really, really frustrating.
If your vendor policy isn’t built around integrated partnerships, you’re going to keep playing from behind.
Operators: Ping your vendors today. Ask them:
“Hey, you look at restaurant data all day long across the industry. What are the most successful restaurants doing that you think we should consider?”
Vendors: Have an answer ready before you get the question. 😉
Now you're gonna look at that screenshot and say "but this says the top issue is that they're too expensive." That's a symptom, not a cause. People don't see price when they see value
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MARKETING IS THE FUTURE
As part of the information-gathering process, operators were asked where they plan to invest in technology over the next 12 months. Two of the top five—and six of the top ten—answers were marketing-related.
As a marketer, I say: God bless. Marketing = Sales.
The top investment area? Social media / online monitoring. What does that really tell us?
- Influencer marketing is growing.
- Guests want to consume content as well as food.
- Guests want to connect with the business and give feedback.
Best practices: Reply to every review on Google and Yelp. Respond to DMs and comments on social. Extend the hospitality you show in your dining room online—especially through direct interactions. (We use Marqii and Ovation to monitor, manage and encourage reviews from guests!)
What does this have to do with digital ordering? Everything. It builds awareness for new guests and retention for existing ones. Building relationships deepens loyalty. Frequent touchpoints keep you top of mind.
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RETENTION IS CALLING 📞
CRM and digital loyalty also ranked high in future marketing investments. Why? I always say: Acquisition costs dollars. Retention costs pennies. It’s way easier to get a happy guest to return than it is to acquire a new one.
Customer data collection should be a top priority. And if you’re doing it right, you’re sending emails on a regular cadence.
Then, analyze the data for purchase behavior trends—that’s where the superpower kicks in.
Example: We use Bikky at both Salad House and Handcraft Burgers and Brew . We recently discovered that guests who become regulars (our highest frequency bucket) start ordering Chicken Pastina Soup on their 4th or 5th visit—and then stick with it.
Once we learned that? BOOM—we started marketing that soup earlier in the guest journey. It increased check averages and introduced more people to one of our most craveable items. Win-win.
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ONLINE EVERYWHERE
When you hear “digital ordering,” you probably think of online ordering—but based on the digital touchpoints operators are looking to add, it also includes kiosks and AI voice ordering.
Makes sense. These tools help offload manual tasks so staff can focus on higher-touch responsibilities.
We’ve had kiosk ordering since Day 1 at Handcraft Burgers & Brew, and it’s awesome.
- It lets team members connect with guests more directly
- Keeps the dining room clean
- Helps maintain order accuracy
Plus, kiosks speed up ordering, collect guest data, and boost upsells. I can’t recommend them enough.
PS We use Bite and love it, especially the secret menu function!
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WHERE TO AI?
The report asked:
“Which digital strategies do you think BENEFIT FROM AI or DON’T BENEFIT FROM AI?”
Y’all made me proud—top answer: generating marketing copy.
Makes total sense. The content monster is always hungry. Creating content that’s interesting, engaging, on-brand and measurable is hard.
But we all know we need it.
So using AI to augment (not replace!) your content marketing efforts is smart.
With the right prompts, a tool like ChatGPT can help you improve your social copy, generate creative ideas—or even help you become a Burger Commando.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It’s a great report. Definitely worth reading.
Whether you’re looking for validation or inspiration, it’ll help you sharpen your thinking, align your priorities, and advance your ops.
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Do you need help with any of this? Send me an email rev@brandedstrategic.net
- Rev Ciancio
WHAT DOES REV DO?
*I help restaurants to build guest marketing programs.
*I help hospitality tech companies with lead generation and content marketing.